Reporting to the American Institute of CPAs, an address by Robert M. Trueblood at the annual meeting, Boston, Mass.;

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cI$eport to tt\e
(^American institute qf CPAs
An address by Robert M. Trueblood
at the Annual Meeting
Boston, Mass.
My year as president has given me some insight into
almost every aspect of the profession's concerns. I've
had the stimulating experience of talking with leaders
of many other organizations which have a direct in­terest
in the services performed by CPAs. I have ref­erence
to groups such as the American Bankers Asso­ciation,
the Securities and Exchange Commission, the
Financial Analysts Federation, the American Account­ing
Association, and the Financial Executives Institute.
And I've benefited from conferences with the top man­agements
of many of our leading corporations. But,
above all, I have enjoyed the opportunity to work closely
with a number of our committees and their dedicated
chairmen, and with the Institute's staff.
Perhaps no one who has nor been president of this
organization can conceive of the scope and complexity
of the Institute's operations—nor visualize the enormous
volume of its production in terms of printed materials,
personal communications, meetings, and courses. It
has become one of the largest organizations of its kind
in the world—and it is still growing. Our Institute has a
distinguished record of achievement, of which we can
be proud.
Yet I must say that I believe the accounting profession
and thus the Institute are only on the threshold of
greater opportunities. Candor, however, requires me
to make another observation: It is by no means certain
that we can cross the threshold of our opportunity
unless we can resolve, in a timely manner, a growing
array of problems.
Consequently, it seems to me that the most useful
thing I can do this morning is to outline briefly some of
the challenges which confront us.
In preparing for this talk, I have conferred in depth
with Jack Carey and John Lawler—our executive direc­tor
and our managing director—and what I shall say
represents a consensus of our views.
I might appropriately begin by speaking of the organi­zation
of the Institute itself. As pointed out in the report
of the Structure Committee (which you have all re­ceived),
the Institute at some point passed over the line
which separates a small organization from a large one.
And size, in this connotation, refers more to significance
and impact than to numbers. Jack Carey has suggested
that this dividing line between the small and the large
operation was crossed sometime during the past decade
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